Better Than It Seems
by Melissa2
Summary: A storm comes and seems to ruin shore leave for three of the crew, especially Harper, but a turn of events changes his mind


Title: Better Than It Seems  
Author: Melissa, aka ILH  
Censor: PG   
Central Characters: Harper, Beka, Trance  
Spoilers: None really  
Author's Note: I don't know why, but I really don't like this upon re-reading it. I'm posting it anyways, though, in hopes that someone else will (which is the goal of most of my fics)  
Disclaimer: Andromeda's characters and the like belong to Tribune, not me. The first 3 paragraphs belong to Anna.  
  
  
Slowly, she swung back and forth with her long tail munching on a piece of turquoise fruit and enjoying the view. Shore leave was only three hours old. She found the panorama of white sand and verdant water refreshing, the steady beat of the waves mingled with the laughter of her friends, relaxing. She smiled as she watched Harper catch Beka unaware and toss a small bucket of chilly water over her blond head. Beka leapt to her feet screaming about tans and retribution then chased the small man down the beach.  
  
Trance sighed in contentment. There was nothing quite like a shoreline and a few good friends. Then she heard a distant noise, a deep basso rumbling. Searching out the source, she saw puffy, angry gray clouds building on the horizon.  
  
A storm was coming.  
  
Trance hopped up, hurrying down the beach to catch her friends. "Harper! Beka! Come back!" Almost tripping over her tail in the process, she ran faster. "There's a storm coming! We have to get back to the hotel!"  
  
Harper and Beka were both too preoccupied in their revenge and fun to hear Trance's cries.  
  
The storm was approaching quickly, and all three of them were getting dangerously far from their hotel and the rest of civilization.  
  
The ground trembled below them with a crack of thunder as the clouds moved overhead. Beka and Harper's attention was on the sky.  
  
Trance caught up to them. "We have to find somewhere safe to stay."  
  
"Let's get back to the hotel," Harper suggested.  
  
"We don't have time to go back to the hotel!" Beka said.  
  
"If we don't stop arguing-" Trance was interrupted by a downpour of rain. "This will happen!"  
  
"It looks like there's some caves over there," Beka said loudly, above the volume of the storm.  
  
The trio hurried over to the rocky cove, covering their heads with their hands to avoid the heavy rain. There was, in fact, a cave large enough for shelter.  
  
"We're lucky this was here," Harper said, taking off his soaked Hawaiian shirt, leaving the dampened white shirt clinging to his skin.   
  
"Trance, you still have your bracer on. See if you can get it tuned into a weather cast," Beka said.  
  
Trance managed to get a fuzzy reception at best, but the audio was clear enough to make out some of it. "Storm...seek shelter...not expected to clear up...tomorrow...stay tuned."  
  
"Damn! There goes my fun in the sun shore leave!" Harper said.  
  
"Well, there might not be any sun here right now, but we still can have fun," Trance said.  
  
"How?" Harper and Beka asked, nearly in unison.  
  
"We can...tell stories!" Trance said.  
  
"What kind of stories?" Harper asked.  
  
"I don't know...whatever kind you want to," Trance replied.  
  
Harper raised an eyebrow and grinned. "I think I know-"  
  
"Harper, don't make me hurt you," Beka warned.  
  
"You don't even know what I was gonna say," Harper complained.  
  
"I know exactly what you were going to say. I've known you for years...I unfortunately know how your mind works," Beka said.  
  
"Hey! Don't insult the mind of a freakin' genius! Harper was obviously annoyed.  
  
"Why don't we do the word association game from Andromeda's psychology files?" Trance asked.  
  
"The what?" Harper seemed interested, but confused.  
  
"I say a word, and you say the first thing that comes to mind," Trance explained.  
  
"If it will pass time," Beka said.  
  
"Yeah, sounds fine to me," Harper said.  
  
"Shore leave," Trance said.  
  
"The Maru," Beka immediately replied.  
  
"The ocean," Harper said.  
  
Trance leaned back against the rocks, getting more comfortable. "Okay. Ummmmmm...rain."   
  
"Weather," Beka replied.  
  
"Wet...and what's the point of this? I'm not having fun," Harper said.  
  
"We could try to brave the storm," Beka suggested.  
  
"No, the weather guy said to seek shelter. We're safe here for now," Trance insisted.  
  
"So, what are we going to do once this storm is over? We've still got tomorrow," Harper said.  
  
"You brought your board, aren't you going to surf?" Beka asked.  
  
"That was my plan for today, yeah. But maybe I'll do something else tomorrow instead," Harper replied.  
  
The torrential downpour continued, and the trio was quiet for a while, just watching the rain and listening to the music of the storm.  
  
"Man, this cave isn't the luxury and comfort I was expecting to spend today and tomorrow in." Harper arched his back, trying to pop it.  
  
"I can help," Trance offered. She crawled over to Harper and began massaging his back. "You're really tense."  
  
"Getting stuck in a cave in the middle of a hurricane can do that to a person," Harper said, enjoying the massage. "You're really really good at this, Trance."  
  
"Thank you," she said, with a smile.  
  
"I'm going to go see if there's a back way out of this cave," Beka said, shining a small pocket flashlight she kept in her pants with her forcelance down the narrow tunnel.  
  
"You don't want us to help?" Trance asked.  
  
"It's too small. And you're busy anyways." Beka started crawling through the tunnel.  
  
Trance continued massaging Harper's shoulders and back, but her mind was on Beka. Trance had a bad feeling about Beka leaving.  
  
"Hey, what are you doing?" Harper asked.  
  
Trance noticed her hands had mindlessly moved to his hips in her thoughts. "Oh, I'm sorry!" She moved them back to his back.  
  
"Don't be sorry. It was kinda nice." He turned his head around and grinned at her.  
  
"We have to go look for Beka," Trance said, pushing Harper up.  
  
"She just left like ten minutes ago," Harper said.  
  
"We're going to look for Beka," Trance said, crawling into the tunnel, using her bracer for light. "I'm going with or without you."  
  
They hadn't gone but forty or fifty feet into the passage before Trance abruptly stopped, causing Harper to bump into her.   
  
"Do you hear that?" Trance asked.  
  
"Hear what? I don't hear anything..." Harper replied.  
  
"The running water...listen." She cocked her head towards the direction they were headed.  
  
Harper finally could hear a soft sound that could have been running water. It was interrupted by a shrill scream that echoed through the tunnel loudly.  
  
Trance and Harper exchanged worried glances. "Beka," they said together.  
  
A second scream started to echo through the tunnel before it stopped suddenly. Trance and Harper quickly crawled down to the tunnel, the sound of running water growing louder.  
  
"There's a river down here!" Trance said loudly.  
  
"Do you see Beka?" Harper tried to lean around to see in front of Trance.  
  
Another garbled scream, much closer, echoed around them.  
  
"She's clinging to that rock over there! I think I can reach her with my tail!" Trance said, trying to be louder than the roaring water.  
  
Trance turned around, careful not to fall in, and wrapped her tail around Beka's reaching arm. Harper grabbed Trance when he realized the force of the current was going to pull her in, too.   
  
"Trance, we're going to be pulled in!" Harper said, trying to keep himself from moving forward anymore.  
  
"Just a little more, Harper!" The strain showed in Trance's voice.  
  
With one final tug, Harper, Trance and a soaking wet Beka were thrown back into the tunnel. After several minutes of recuperation, they crawled wearily back into the small entrance of the cave.   
  
"Are you all right, Beka?" Trance asked.  
  
"I'm drenched and cold, but I'm okay," Beka replied.  
  
"When's this storm going to let up?" Harper asked, watching the rain still pouring down outside.  
  
"It's ruining our shore leave. We could be at that hotel right now, at the spa or the indoor pool or the gym that we paid a ton for," Beka said.  
  
"Or with that really hot masseuse that talked to me on the way to our rooms," Harper said.  
  
"She told you to get out of her way, Harper," Beka said.  
  
"Every time you try, there's more of a chance you'll succeed," Trance said.  
  
Harper sighed. "Taking into account all my failures...I should be on the massage table with that woman right now-"  
  
"We don't need to know anymore, Harper," Beka said.  
  
"The rain is starting to lighten up," Trance said.  
  
Beka and Harper turned their heads to see that Trance was right. Before another ten minutes had passed, the rain had diminshed to sprinkling.  
  
"Let's go back to the hotel now," Harper said.  
  
Beka walked out ahead, more quickly as if to make up for wasted time. Trance and Harper walked slowly behind together.  
  
"Y'know this isn't how I expected our shore leave to start out," Harper said.  
  
"It wasn't what I was expecting either, but it hasn't been bad," Trance said.  
  
"So, what are you planning on doing once we get back to the hotel?"  
  
"I don't know. "Maybe go to the dance lessons."  
  
"What kind of dancing?"  
  
"They have ballroom, and I haven't tried that yet..."  
  
"Don't you need a partner for that?"   
  
"Yeah. I guess it was a silly idea."  
  
"No, it's not." He smiled at her. "I'll go with you, if you want."  
  
"What about the masseuse?"  
  
"Who needs her? I've got a multi-talented sparkly purple babe right here with me."  
  
She smiled back at him. "I'd like it a lot if we went dancing. And then maybe we could have dinner in that big aquarium restaurant."  
  
"I think I'm going to like it a lot, Trance." He took her hand in his.  
  
They walked silently until they were practically back to the hotel.  
  
Trance broke the silence. "I told you that that if you kept trying, you would succeed eventually. It's always better than it seems at first, Harper." She leaned down and kissed him on the cheek.  



End file.
